Existing storage infrastructures, such as the storage infrastructure shown in FIG. 1, are provided and managed by a provider 110 and used by at least one consumer 104. Consumer 104 in this context is a person or organization which stores data 106 under consideration of different service levels 107. Therefore, the storage infrastructure comprises storage components 116. The term storage components here refers to both, storage devices providing capacity and data access, as well as storage software dealing with these devices or the data. Such storage software, according to existing storage infrastructures, may includes functions to virtualize storage infrastructure, management functions, configuration functions, monitoring and reporting functions and alerting function. The data 106 is stored via a consumer data interface 120 in the storage components 116. Besides, the consumer 104 provides service levels 107 for his data to the provider 110, what is manifested in a service level agreement (SLA).
A provider 110 in this context is a person or organization which provides and manages the storage infrastructure and ensures that the service levels 107 are met. Consumer 104 and provider 110 can be one and the same organization or enterprise or they can be of different enterprises. Service levels 107 in this context are measurable properties used to describe the consumer's requirements for the storage of his data 106. For example, one service level may describe the initial access time for data which can be measured in seconds. The storage components 116 selected must fulfill the consumer specified service levels 107.
The management of the storage infrastructure comprises mapping, selecting and configuring storage components 116 according to service levels 107, measuring achievement of service levels 107 and providing corresponding reports 140 as well as acting upon failures to meet service levels 107. Therefore, the storage infrastructure comprises a management component 132 and a reporting component 130, which are accessible to the provider 110 via a provider interface 122.
In a storage infrastructure as described above most of these management tasks have to be carried out manually. Especially, the provider 110 has to map the consumer service levels 107 to storage components 116. The provider 110 has to manually configure the storage components 116 based on the service levels 107 via the management component 132. The provider 110 has to ensure that the service levels 107 are met. Therefore, he has to monitor the system and act upon failures to meet service levels 107. The provider 110 also has to generate reports 140 via the reporting component 132 based on consumer service levels 107 and he has to charge the consumer 104 based on these reports 140. Additionally, the provider 110 has to provide the capacity requested by the consumer 104, even though the consumer 104 may not initially require the requested amount. This results in a waste of storage resources. In such consumer-provider model the provider is very dependent on his human resources (manpower) to map, select, provision, configure, monitor, correct and report a storage infrastructure. Besides, this consumer-provider model is prone for mistakes, which can become expensive for the provider. This is particularly important for outsourcing contracts.
Data Facility System Managed Storage (DFSMS)—which allows the automated mapping of data to storage components based on predefined policies (also called ACS routines). Such policies are predefined by the user and do not actually reflect the capabilities of the underlying storage infrastructure. However, DFSMS is very limited in the service levels it supports, and it does not allow for automated mapping between service levels and storage components. Additionally, DFSMS does not monitor the achievement of service levels and perform corrective actions.